Indy ORP: Warren Johnson Sunday notes

Starting 8th, WJ Has His Work Cut Out for Him in Indy
On the strength of a 6.668-second time recorded on his third attempt on
Saturday afternoon, Warren Johnson qualified his GM Performance Parts
Pontiac GXP in the eighth position for Monday's...

Starting 8th, WJ Has His Work Cut Out for Him in Indy

On the strength of a 6.668-second time recorded on his third attempt on
Saturday afternoon, Warren Johnson qualified his GM Performance Parts
Pontiac GXP in the eighth position for Monday's final eliminations
of the Mac Tools U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis, IN. In each of the
five sessions at O'Reilly Raceway Park, Johnson posted the fastest
top speed of the 28 Pro Stock Cars attempting to qualify, highlighted by
his track-record 208.33 mph run on Sunday morning.

"Overall, I'd say we had a decent qualifying performance here
in Indianapolis. Allen (No. 1 qualifier Johnson) seems to have his act
together so far this weekend, while the rest of us have missed a step or
two throughout the three days. Still, I'm not about to complain.

"We've been working on our GM Performance Parts GXP
throughout the weekend, trying to make it better on every run. It has
always been fast -- now we're just trying to pick up the
elapsed time part of it. When you do that, you're right on the
edge of that dreaded tire shake syndrome, and we've been there so
many times that we might have been overly cautious. However, we're
not going to waste time worrying about what's already done.
We'll just take what we have, adjust it based on our data, and do
whatever we can to go rounds tomorrow."

Johnson's solid qualifying performance, combined with fellow
competitor Greg Stanfield's DNQ, opened the door for the six-time
champion to qualify for the NHRA's playoff season, which will start
at the next race in Charlotte, NC. Faced with the daunting task of
having to reach the final round in order to make the Countdown to One, WJ
adopted a methodical approach to tomorrow's elimination rounds.

"Although we should have never put ourselves in this predicament to
start with, we're certainly happy that our chances of making the
playoffs have gotten a reprieve. We're confident our GM
Performance Parts GXP is capable of winning rounds and races -- we
just have to do a better job with it on race day than we have to this
point of the season. We know what we need to do, so we're going to
take tomorrow one round at a time, trying to make the most of the
opportunity, and see where we stand at the end of the day. Hopefully,
things will go our way."